Believing that they had only minutes to live, hundreds of people on the island sent goodbye messages to loved ones and made heartbreaking decisions about how to spend their last moments alive.

After the chaos was over, this dad shared his story on social media writing:

Right now I’m in tears on pulled over on Bishop St.

The adrenaline is just now leaving my system. Just five mins before the ballistic missile warning I dropped my eldest at the airport and drove to Nimitz Zippys.

There I found out about the threat and had to decide whether to shelter there, drive to my two younger children at home, go back to the airport or go be with my wife at work.

None of these destinations were within 15 minutes of where I was.

I chose to go home to the two little ones – I figured it was the largest grouping of my family – knowing I likely wouldn’t make it home in time.

I was tearing up South Street to the freeway when I heard it was a mistake.

F*** you Hawaii Civil Defence.

Someone was definitely in trouble last night for the massive screw-up.

The dad’s story was shared by Gene Park on Twitter who wrote:

My friend in Hawaii got the alert and had to quickly choose between which members of his family he would spend his last moments on Earth with because they were ALL too far apart from each other.

He had to make the difficult choice of going immediately to his youngest children.

My friend in Hawaii got the alert and had to quickly choose between which members of his family he would spend his last moments on Earth with because they were ALL too far apart from each other. He had to make the difficult choice of going immediately to his youngest children. pic.twitter.com/n8LNPiVscP